Thanks dude. Great article! Tip 1: Identifying patterns is a big one. The patterns are much harder to identify in English, but very easy in French and other Latin based languages. But I understood what I was reading via those language patterns much easier than anything I had learned in English.
Who knew? And they were happy to speak to me in French. Tip 3: hang out in the cultural centres in your city and make friends with native speakers. I also learned a lot about other cultures and made lots of friends.
My daughter is fluent in both French and English too. I always told her that the more languages she knew, the more friends she would make… never mind that it would also give her a leg up finding a job. It is an interesting post with really good advice, but I disagree with 6.
Adults can be good language learners, but not better than children. Children are better at language learning. As a matter of fact, they do not learn, but acquire the language subconsciously. They learn the language at the same time as they develop their emotional regulation systems.
In other words, they learn the language through perceptual channels that become integrated with the limbic system. While a child learns any language instinctively, adults need to turn to their intelligence to learn the rules. This makes adults more intelligent, but not better language learners. The fact that adults make use of their intelligence to learn a new language is good, but it is not an advantage in relation to children, who accomplish the same task effortlessly. Adults have the cognitive strategies to start a language journey for which children do not need any strategy at all.
Those are concepts that Spanish children understand instinctively without any need for formal instruction. Adults have to make a conscious effort to learn something that children acquire naturally.
If you carry out grammar tests with adolescents or adults, they will perform better than children, since they are making use of their intelligence. What these experiments prove is that adults are more intelligent, not better language learners. In fact, having no grammar is an advantage for children, since they build their grammars at the same time as they learn the language. They do not need to compare the new grammar vs the old grammar.
In other words, they do not have a language whose grammar and vocabulary interferes with the new one. The fact is that babies do not find it difficult to learn a language while adults do.
If adults were better language learners than children there would be many more polyglots around and less people pondering on the subject. I agree that adults can be strong at language learning, but not stronger than children. Consider an L1 Spanish speaker learning English prepositions.
This is an extremely arduous task. An L1 English child will have acquired all of these meanings by the age of 5, will be able to comprehend and produce them without thinking about it, whereas an English L2 learner will have problems, even after 5 or 10 years of learning the language.
Nice to see someone else into cognitive linguistics here! Also, have you read Metaphors We Live By? I think that within 5 years real-time computer translation will be available on your smartphone. It never gets old. I disagree strongly, and this is from a combination of the decade of language learning AND a degree in electronic engineering, so I know pretty well how technology is progressing.
There are some apps that attempt this now, but in using them in the real world outside of fancy marketing videos the app came up with they fail miserably.
However, a normal conversation will only be replaced when artificial intelligence is at the stage where it is absolutely indistinguishable from a human in all ways. You need this level of intelligence in whatever translation system is being used to process natural language — to the stage where you can replace a professional simultaneous interpreter. Learning languages will be relevant for the lifetime of every person reading this post. I also forgot about the fact that it would pretty awkward to have to talk into your phone in English and then have it output another language in synthesized voice, unless the person you are talking to also has the app and then you can speak in English and it will instantly translate it, but the tone of voice issues would still be there.
But, I disagree that you need human-level intelligence for translating. People would have said the same thing about playing chess, but clearly that is not the case.
Already, Google and Bing translate are good enough at translating text that you can use them for most things. So now the only issue is voice recognition, and given that voice recognition has now hit the critical point, there is going to be lots more investment from Google and other companies in perfecting it over the next few years.
My name is John. I like your blog. I want to start a blog for people who are Spiritual But Not Religious. Can I ask you a question?
Would such a blog be monetizable Is the idea of making money off a spiritual blog distasteful? Matt will help you out a lot. Running this way will help you out tremendously, I promise. Thanks a million Matt! Thanks for the encouragement. Well, I think it is a very nice and helpful post for all those looking to learn foreign language. The post shares nice information for those people helping them learn quickly and effectively. This was an insightful post.
Thank you so much for explaining and helping out so many of your readers! I have a question, though! There are loads of online communities were you can practise your language skills by writing. The site I mentioned Lang-8, actually gives you feedback from its userbase.
Thank you! Well well well Tim Ferris. You have done it again. Just opened my latest quarterly TIM05 and it yet again delivers! The earplugs are great. I always carry a pair I had made to my ears years back but extras are always good to have and the carry case is cool. Everything is very cool. Now to the problem. I will never be able to cancel this quarterly subscription ever!
Oh well, such a great problem to have. Which strategy would you follow? Aiming for a solid C1 in two or three languages or going for more languages while aiming a bit lower at B2? Your goals should depend on what you want out of languages.
Aiming higher for a smaller number is always better. It was simply more practical for me with my extensive 11 years full-time travel to cast my net wider. Excellent post! I love the challenge and excitement of communicating to others outside of my own culture. I will pass this on to my students and parents! Hopefully they will have the same desire to learn like I do! Love the post Benny. I found the fi3m blog, and got the book, and am excited about starting my journey into learning French.
My 13 year old daughter can speak it, so of love to be able to surprise her! As a Kiwi, I learnt Maori at school and was at a b2 level, but that was a long time ago. Your blog and book had reignited the fire… Thanks! Tim—would you consider doing a blog post elaborating on your system for tandem practice, including your complete list of useful questions and phrases? Thank you very much! Best wishes, Belinda Australia.
Thanks for the kick in the butt… been married to an Iranian beauty for more than 10 years and even bought your book years ago, but never got around to doing anything with it…. Do you have any tips for learning foreign languages for hearing impaired people, as listening to audio tapes, or TV shows would not be helpful?
What an epic post! This definitive guest post by Benny will teach you: How to speak your target language today. How to reach fluency and exceed it within a few months.
How to pass yourself off as a native speaker. This is a post you all requested, so I hope you enjoy it! Such wonderful experiences are well within the reach of many of you.
This very detailed post should give you everything you need to know. Starting a new language means learning new words. Lots of them. I consider that a win. The best resources are free. Lang 8 to receive free written corrections. The possibilities for free practice are endless. Over half of the planet speaks more than one language.
Another failing of most learning approaches is a poorly defined end-goal. The way I reach spoken fluency quickly is to get a hell of a lot of spoken practice. After lots of exercises to tidy up my mistakes at the B1 level, I find that I can break into B2.
To show you what a higher level looks like, here is a chat I had with my Quebec Couchsurfer about the fascinating cultural and linguistic differences between Quebec and France I would have been at a C1 level at this stage : Reaching the C2 level can be extremely difficult. My own French teacher pointed out a mistake I was making along these same lines.
Second, walk like an Egyptian The second factor that influences whether or not you could be confused for a native speaker, involves working on your social and cultural integration. Imitation is, after all, the most sincere form of flattery! Related and Recommended. Leave a Reply Cancel reply. Congrats on this guest post, Benny. Hope to run into you again asap! Congratulations on your book launch as well! This is a great post, Benny is very impressive and an inspiration.
That is so awesome. Very handsome profile pic! Skype me maybe? Lol Beth. Great post Benny! Enjoy the book! Best of luck with your language learning project! The coming together of two worlds! Benny and Tim! Thank you for the great guest post Benny! This is great. Now I have to decide which to learn first, Spanish or Portuguese.
Awesome post Benny. What decades of peer reviewed research are you referring to? Language and Speech , 24 If you can get to a university library, you could check out: Birdsong For fossilisation in grammar, check: Lardiere, D. As a native Polish speaker I must say that you are awesome.
Thanks for the inspiration. Evidence highly contradicts this concept. Same goes for Rosetta Stone. Hi Georgina, I saw your comment yesterday and it took me a day of thinking but I have a hint for you! Good luck! Other than that, great article! Thank you Tim and Benny. Viel Erfolg! Wishing you lots of success! Hi Dom and Benny, please check out my website for learning German with the news and would be cool to know what you think about it. Thank you both. I am rather shocked you would publish anything from him.
I lost a lot of respect for you Tim. I have a couple of additional suggestions. Oops, trust an English teacher to have typos in his post.
Hi Tim, Longtime reader and fan, first time commenter. Thanks Aaron. Benny, Great article, so much information to absorb. Thanks Benny. Loved the skype me maybe video. Benny, Great stuff as always. Where I fail is execution. Do you have any tips for me? Thanks, Zsolt. Hi every body, Tim and Benny thanks for this too complete post about being a polyglot, I took note about all, it took me about 2 hours but ti worths them :. Provider of online lessons with tutors in their native countries italki also wants to see tech being used to make learning more accessible.
Comparing the language learning social network to the sharing economies of startups such as Taskrabbit and AirBnB, italki's chief executive, Kevin Chen, says: "Our belief is that helping people connect is helping students that were previously unable to get access to native teachers, and teachers that were previously unable to teach students outside of their cities. Rosetta Stone, the longstanding provider of language-learning software, has poured time and resources into its research of the market and concluded that mobile is the way forward.
Rosetta Stone has added apps to its suite of language-learning tools. People are so hooked on being mobile, whether that's an iPad or any other device they can lug around. Von Ahn says an unexpected result of DuoLingo being an app is that it's attracted an unlikely type of user. DuoLingo was designed to be like a game, and what the company has found is that many users aren't even necessarily diehard language fans, they're just looking for an educational way to kill some time.
We have to find a way to keep them interested and that's where the gamification came in. For Whyte, technology is also making education more personalised.
The reality is you only need 15 minutes a day to make progress, and surely you have that! Consider your daily commute for example — thanks to technology, you can spend this time revising vocabulary or listening to foreign podcasts. So stop making excuses and start building those daily habits. During the rest of this guide, you will learn what some of these habits should be. The most frequent reason people give for being unable to learn languages is that they have a bad memory.
But the problem is less to do with their memory and more to do with their technique. Learn cognates. These are words that are almost exactly the same in another language.
For instance, gratitud in Spanish means the same as gratitude in English. Romance languages like Spanish , French and Italian have hundreds of words in common with English. You can easily find lists of these cognates online. The pronunciation will differ somewhat, so check it by using Forvo , a brilliant, free site where you can listen to native speakers pronouncing specific words. Learn the most commonly used words.
To achieve native level fluency in a language, you would typically need to know at least 50, words. But to achieve conversational fluency you only need to learn a fraction of that — to words. This is because in all languages, there is a minority of words that make up the majority of the spoken language. Again, you can find lists of these words online. However, you will also come across them naturally whilst speaking and listening to the language.
Learn words that are relevant to you. Do this by focusing on topics that interest you or that come up in your day to day life. These could be related to your work or to your leisure activities. Use flashcards and spaced repetition. Flashcards are quite possibly the most effective way to memorise language. You can also use flashcard apps such as Anki. Use a notebook and take it everywhere. Write down relevant vocabulary you come across whenever you are exposed to the language.
Whilst you can use an online dictionary to find translations, I recommend writing the words down in a notebook rather than recording them on a device. In my case due to work I decided to rekindle my interest in German which would be my 4th language. I myself still marvel at people, especially kids who become fluent in just 6 months but as for myself I feel like unless I am in an immersed environment living in the country learning the language at full fluency is nearly impossible.
I agree. In addition to basically everything you see, other than things like books for language learning, is in English as well. I think it also depends on HOW you learn the language.
I had 2 years of French in junior high and 4 years in high school. This was back in the s, when languages were taught mostly by textbook with verb conjugation drills. Things have really changed! Language learning seems to be more natural now. I just hope the new methods are effective. Are there any studies to show the effectivess of different language programs? I already know a bit of each, but not much, and the summer holidays are coming up, so I have a lot of time up my sleeve.
How many hours a day would you recommend? Do as much as you can handle really, and do it seriously. The time would pass anyways. Let your progress creep up on you. Nice, your concept of 5 levels of proficiency is interesting. I agree with you thanks for the sharing. Who has time for that?? I still have to work, be a mother, a wife, and a dog mom!
Can someone give me a realistic time expectancy? Thanks for sharing this Great article I appreciate the valuable time you have used to share this.
To be truly fluent you will be learning for the rest of your life. Learning a language is a never ending process. I study every day and practice every day with my girlfriend who only speaks Portuguese.
What is the trick to be able to understand the second language instead of translating? I translate the other words I know in my head.
I particularly recommend our Brazilian mini-stories on LingQ. Different voices telling simple stories with lots of repetition. I have used this method and end up listening to the stories times. Go for it. You must be logged in to post a comment. I speak 20 languages. Learning Techniques. View all 49 comments. I did 10 hours a day for a month when I was off uni. Why there is no group for Nordic languages like Danish or Norwegian?
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